Lying to Your Kids

the Story of Confirmation
Here's how it goes...Some 2000 years ago, a gifted Jewish teacher and healer named Jesus was killed by political and religious leaders.  He had made a claim to be the Jewish Messiah, a promised leader who would set the Israelites free from personal sin and political oppression.  Before his death, he told his closest followers to wait for a gift that he would send them much later.  Three days after his death he rose mysteriously from death and ascended to God.  They waited.50 days later it arrived--the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It sounded like wind, it looked like fire.  It gave them ability to think and speak in ways that brought clarity to people about th

Looking Toward All Saints Day
John 11:32-44When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.  He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

Prayer that Never Ends
(as first published in "The Minister's Corner" October 10 edition of the Shawnee News-Star, OK.) Saint Paul wrote a curious thing about prayer. He said we ought to pray without ceasing. I’ve heard different thoughts about what such a peculiar phrase might mean. Was the Apostle exaggerating? Was he talking about keeping a constant awareness of God’s presence in such a way that even our thoughts can be considered like prayers? Each of our traditions approach prayer differently. The Episcopal tradition uses written prayers and I know quite a few people who think such a thing absurd. “It doesn’t have any spontaneity!” they say. “How can you

What's a Guy Gotta Do to be Saved?
A few years ago I met weekly with a group of men for what most might consider an unusual Bible Study. We didn’t follow a curriculum that presented a central lesson, which you were to take with you after it was over. This was simpler. We read the scripture and responded to it, usually a chapter or two at a time. Read and respond. Now there were a couple of us who did some of background reading for some of the more difficult things we might come across. But for the most part this was an attempt to simply read these ancient texts and react to them, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and see how we might be affected. We read all over the Bible, from the

Small Talk in Big Rooms, Big Talk in Small Rooms
Friday night Karen and I went to the Upper Classmen Variety Show at her University.  Our little Noah had a bit-part in the beginning, so we took our seats among the other 500 people in the auditorium with all the subsequent standing around in small circles chatting under the loud pre-music show.  I love people, but I dread huge crowds.  Small talk is hard enough, but swimming around in it shouting niceties at the top of your lungs is interminable.  Saturday morning I went to my first gathering of "the priest-wanna-bes" at the Diocesan office in Oklahoma City.  It was a "first impression" sort of gathering, though we actually ended up not having much of a c